Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag Kenway's Fleet Guide

In Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, around sequence 8, you gain the ability to use Kenway's Fleet. This will be used in a variety of ways. First of all you can go on missions throughout the Atlantic and gain more goods and money, and s mentioned in my guide to sailing, you can now capture desirable ships and add them to your fleet.

Note: Kenway's Fleet requires a steady Internet connection, so if you don't have one, you're out of luck.

How to Attract More Desirable Ships To Add to Your Fleet

If you're just puttering around in the ocean, you can encounter a half-dozen schooners and gunboats, but you're never going to get to Africa with a fleet of schooners. What you need are a few bigger, badder ships.

For one, you can attract Hunter ships. To do so you must attack ships enough to raise your wanted level. Usually ships that are brig-level or above will get you to raise your wanted level faster. Once you're over Level 1, you're going to attract a Hunter ships. These ships are red-sailed menaces and tough to kill, but it's a good ship to add to your fleet, or scrap, which we'll explain later.

Another good place to pick up ships is Royal Convoys. These Royal Convoys are also part of the single-player online element, and are a good way to get a lot of gold and a pretty decent ship to add to your fleet. These convoys will pop up in your mini-map as blue icons, and if one of your online friends is also playing AC4, then you should also be getting alerts from when they find Royal Convoys. These ships aren't the strongest in the fleet, but early game they were especially helpful for keeping the seas clear for my safe passage.

Lastly, a good strong ship is a Man O War. You encounter these tough guys usually on story missions, and they're a rough bit to kill. I'd recommend attacking one of the smaller ships that usually escorts them and then taking them down, and my guide on ship combat would be a good place to look for more exact tips on that. Man O Wars are great for two reasons: 1) they have excellent fire power and 2) their storage is pretty much unparalleled.

Ships All Boarded, Now What?

Remember to board the ships, don't sink them. They're just going to give you some minor goods and crew if you sink them.

Now, if your ship has not been substantially injured by the previous fight, you can afford to not repair the Jackdaw. Simply select "Send to Kenway's Fleet," even if you're pretty sure you're going to scrap the boat.

Kenway's Fleet runs on a slightly different economy than the rest of the game: gemstones. You can use Kenway's fleet through the Captain's Quarters on the ship, and from here you can decide the fate of captured ships.

You really only have two options. One, you can add the ship to your fleet (if you have the dock space, but more on that later) or you can scrap the ship for gemstones. Gemstones allow you to buy more dock space, repair ships damaged in battle for territory, etc. They are very valuable, as you can only earn them in the Kenway's Fleet mini-game.

Sometimes when I'm playing, I send schooners to Kenway's fleet simply so I can collect gemstones for them. This will help in the long run, especially if you damage your Man O War in a battle to control trade to Portugal.

What About Docks?

You are limited to the amount of docks you can have, and when you get enough gemstones, you can use those to purchase more dock space.

You can also salvage another ship from the fleet to make more dock space.

How to Use Your Fleet

The primary map you'll be using to access Kenway's Fleet is your naval map. This map, which resembles colored constellations, features all the routes you have access to (you can add more routes through completing missions) as well as the safeness of the routes. The danger level of the route is color coded similar to a stoplight, red means hazardous and green means safe.

Ships are used for one of two things. One is ship battles to secure the route and the other is naval missions.

Ship battles are probably the most tactic involved aspects of Kenway's Fleet. These acts of naval warfare are a way of claiming your territory, and making it so that the routes your ships use are safer -- making it easier and faster for them to complete naval missions. You can select a ship battle by pressing Y on the above menu.

Once you are in the ship battle menu, you can make your decisions. I'm very precautionary, so I never go into a fight unless I have a 100% chance of success, especially with some of my more valuable ships like the Man o War. Below is an image of a ship battle:

This interface is all about picking which ships will be the best in a fight against the others. Above your ships are your "odds of success." Now, there's no reason to throw your big guns at every battle. A Man O War is a little more costly to fix, so if you're just fighting a gunboat, you can send a schooner to take care of the job.

The first slot is your primary ship, and the two other slots help to add more damage to the other fleet, and to spread the damage across your ships so they don't sink one of your ships. Each battle is different, but always shoot for high odds.

Above is a ship battle. The red circles indicate how fast a ship is firing. Like in a Jackdaw fight, little ships fire faster but hit softer, big ships fire slower but can really pack a punch. Keep that in mind while selecting your ships. While you can shoot fire barrels, I honestly don't recommend doing that unless you are in dire straights. Barrels are given through random drops from destroying other ships, so they're a rare commodity.

At this point, all you can really do is watch the battle play out with your selected pawns. If it looks like the fight is going poorly, you can flee or you can shoot fire barrels, but if you choose a very high percentage rate, you're not going to have to worry about that.

Naval missions are the other aspect of Kenway's Fleet. These are how you gain resources, a bit of coin, and some items. Simply select a mission from the drop down menu. This is really a matter of personal preference, but I usually like to keep one of my larger ships at home while the rest do missions, just so I can go and do more ship battles if the seas get hazardous again.

Why Do I Care About Kenway's Fleet?

It's true, the Kenway's Fleet part of Assassin's Creed 4 is not necessary to complete the story missions. But there are a couple of reasons you might want to look into it.

First and foremost, it can actually be sort of fun. I had a lot of fun figuring out how to spread out my fleet assets, and really missed when I wasn't able to work with this specific aspect of the game.

Outside of enjoyment, you can get treasure maps from Kenway's Fleet. If you're a completionist, you'll need to find all the treasure maps and complete all the fleet missions to receive all the Abstergo Cheats, including Deceased Crew.

Did I miss something about Kenway's Fleet? Have any questions? Leave a comment in the section below.

What's your skinny on this?

I have a question about assassin's creed black flag if I have a ship waiting but don't have the.gems for a dock and I ignore it for now how do I go back and get those ships after I salvage some of my weaker ships need help on this asap I have 4 man o war ships that I had to ignore for now and I need those ships desperately

Follow you? I'm not sure I know what you mean. If you mean in game, from my experience the Fleet is almost like a mini-map, and you don't really interact with them once you've captured the vessels beyond the Fleet mini-game.

What do the little symbols or icons next to specific trade missions represent? I know the exclamation mark means that the mission has not been completed, but I cant figure out what the little "globe-like" and little flying note thingy do. does anyone know what they mean?

You don't have any info on how to help friends using Kenway's Fleet. I Have a full fleet of Man 'o Wars, but I can only help my friends by speeding them up. It will not give me the option to send an escort ship. Do you have to have a certain size ship to escort? Does it only work if my ship and my friend's ships are at the same port?

is there some way to use the stuffs that the fleet has gained after the battle? For example, sugar, wood and so on.
I'm referring the itens above the menus selectable via R1 and L1 (the fleet | naval map | ship progress)

Your general remarks about this are fine, so no issues with anything you've posted. I DO have several issues with "Kenway's Fleet". First, there's a limited number of gemstones you can acquire; after that, no matter how many you earn, the game doesn't register them, so you're throwing them away. Second, the limited number of docks limit the number of ships you can acquire; once again, you are throwing away your efforts and gemstones. Also, the rudimentary way this Fleet game is designed, it seems to act like a one-way street. For example, I sent my fleet out on various missions; meanwhile, I capture several level 60 ships, the best you can capture. But "Kenway's Fleet" is a one-way street; the interface only allows me to turn my new big ships into gemstones, which I've already maxed out to the highest number. Somehow, the game doesn't offer me the option to scrap the ships returned from missions, only the newer better ships I want to keep. So my only option is to scrap 4 big 60 level ships for gemstones that will never even register, because I'm maxed out. I'm having a blast with the main AC 4, but Kenway's Fleet is clumsy, poorly thought out and poorly designed, worst of all, BORING. Thanks for the space to vent to fellow players; no offense meant to you.

Ok I just wanna point a few things out.. reading through the comments Ive noticed a few things,. to get away from the add dock screen or salvage ship screen you should only need to add dock or salvage ships u may have to many that you captured. on the getting ships with a higher cargo load usually the southern part of your ingame map has the strongest ships look for man o wars that are level 60 thats the ingame max and always has 90 cargo space. Me personally i have 4 man o wars 2 with 70 cargo and 2 with 90 and the rest are all frigates with different cargo spaces about 40 to 50 cargo spread between 5 ships it works out great for me and I also use the companion app so in the am at work i send out my fleet to locations and usually by the following morning they are all back that for me is the best mix. Great thread though :)

I am kinda stuck being able to build a fleet by capturing a ship. I only have two options, (1) Fix my ship or (2) Reduce my threat level. There isn't an option to capture a ship to include a Hunter Ship. Any ideas as to why the capture ship has been omitted? Thanks in advance.

Great read. Would love it if you added strategy on "the perfect fleet". I've noticed that there are a lot of trade offs...just filling your fleet with man o wars isn't necessarily the best. Not only are they sluggish to fire in fleet battles, but Lso they make some fleet missions take longer bc of their travel speed. I expect the perfect fleet is a mix.

That would be interesting. I do agree. I find that in specific battles, it's good to have a good mix. The little schooners aren't really tanky enough to be your first ship, but they make a decent fit for faster hitters and can even the playing field against smaller ships.

I filled the docks and sent the fleet out. I have continued to send ships to the fleet. 4 days later, after many hours of play, the only option I get is to salvage ships, and have only two docks with ships to compare. I can't see where my ships are on their trading. I have ships I want to keep and swap out, but how long will I have to wait to get that option?
Thanks

Hello I have completed the game and very much enjoyed it. However my brother started a game using the same account and we have found out that kenways fleet on one save takes over all three of the saves even though it is a different persons game. Why have they done this?

Hi. i've been using my fleet for a while now and not long ago my brother obtained a fleet too. When he went through the tutorial he also got all the rewards of my previous ships that I had sent out, and also got all the boats I had. when i went back to my file i still had the ships but no rewards.

we seem to be on a shared file as far as our fleets go, and whoever claims rewards first gets them. any new boats added to the fleet add to BOTH of our files, which is annoying. we were wondering if there is any way to seperate into two fleet as opposed to sharing one.

you can get more fire barrels in kenways fleet by helping other players by either healing one of their ships or speeding them along, as far as i've noticed, everytime i help a friend along, i get 1 fire barrel. so with enough friends playing, you can rack up the fire barrels you are able to use. fyi.